This is the second book about Cormoran Strike, a hard-boiled private investigator in the Mickey Spillane mode. This book is set in the vicious world of publishing. Excellent plot with ongoing development of the relationship between Cormoran and his trusty secretary, Robin. The story takes place in London, and you can feel the cold of an English winter.
Category: Genre
Elizabeth Is Missing – Emma Healey
Excellent first book about the ravages of dementia, about Maud (mid 80s) with short-term memory loss (What am I doing? Where am I going?) with retention of long-term memory (disappearance of an elder sister after WWII). The exasperation of her daughter and other care-givers is vivid.
Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall
Another book from the CBC list; also Whittall was at a Walrus Talks panel discussion at Blue Metropolis. This is a relationship book about 20-somethings that is not preoccupied by drugs. Notably, there is a central trans-gender character, and this characteristic is treated without emphasis, just as it should be.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6606825-holding-still-for-as-long-as-possible?from_search=true
Certainty by Madeleine Thien
This is a great book, really two love stories spanning two generations set in North Borneo (WWII, now Malaysia), Vancouver and The Netherlands. It is a compelling story of secrets and sorrows of the past, and grief and loss (a phrase: “ routine .. to keep their thoughts contained”). This may be the only time I have recommended two books by the same author in a single month.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/474662.Certainty?from_search=true
Cereus Blooms At Night by Shani Mootoo
A fierce story of Mala, a multi-layered individual: fiercely protective of her sister after her mother leaves; driven to murder by sexual abuse by her father; an interesting issue of her sanity when she is institutionalized. A book filled with vivid characters. (This is also on the CBC list; last month I recommended Valmiki’s Daughter)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/111653.Cereus_Blooms_at_Night?from_search=true
Dogs At The Perimeter by Madeleine Thien
This is a heartbreaking story of Cambodia in the 1970s, horrors that persist two decades later in Canada. A haunting phrase: “Hunger was erasing my being”; reality becomes blurred in such horrible circumstances. Thien was at Blue Metropolis last May in Montreal.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10129122-dogs-at-the-perimeter
A Tap On The Window by Linwood Barclay
A very good mystery by a Canadian author (chosen from the CBC List of 100 Authors who make us proud to be a Canadian). This is a plot-driven mystery, so not much description of place. An intrepid private eye solves several murders, with the usual corrupt police force. There is a good surprise at the ending!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16072980-a-tap-on-the-window
The Epicure’s Lament by Kate Christensen
Hugo is obnoxious, cynical and bitter with self-loathing, so a thoroughly unpleasant person who has chosen to be a hermit. His choice of suicide to end his life (spoiler alert) is thwarted leading to a not entirely satisfactory ending but the writing is excellent throughout. (You may remember that I recommended another Christensen book 
last month, The Great Man)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/148216.The_Epicure_s_Lament
Museum Of Extraordinary Things – Alice Hoffman
One of the best features of this book is the setting: New York and more specifically Coney Island in Brooklyn in 1911. The “museum” is really an exhibit of freaks of nature, both living and dead, most faked/manipulated. The Professor character is wonderfully wicked, but love wins out. Part of the story is a mystery, to add to the flavour.
What David Read 